In the 1980s, during the time that "My Children, My Africa" is set, the oppressed people of South Africa rose up again against the horrors of apartheid. The first to restart the struggle, which had been quelled in the fifties by harsh bans of the liberation movements, were the workers and students. The frustration with Bantu education first came to a boiling point in 1976, and the subsequent uprising left more than 1,000 people dead. After this, many students began to join the ANC’s underground movement. In the 1980s it reached its peak, and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) was formed, giving rise to massive school boycotts in 1980 and, as seen in “My Children! My Africa!,” in 1984-1985. Thami decides to leave the riotous township just before the conflict escalated in 1985, when the ANC asked its members to destroy the local town authorities which would make places such as “the location” impossible to control. However, after the time at which the play ends, the government began to fight back and systematically destroy the homes and sites that housed the members of the resistance movement. The South African Defense Force (SADF) began attack ANC headquarters, such as those to the North that Thami went to join at the end of the play, and this sort of warfare carried on until 1991 when, after the ANC was made legal, Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s president.
Below are three links, one leading to a more comprehensive history of the ANC and resistance to Bantu education, one to the memoirs of a white South African fighting in the SADF during the time at which the play is set, and the last to the type of violence that was given birth to by this coflict: the violence of oppressed black South Africans against other oppressed black South Africans, like that seen in the death of Mr. M.
Below are three links, one leading to a more comprehensive history of the ANC and resistance to Bantu education, one to the memoirs of a white South African fighting in the SADF during the time at which the play is set, and the last to the type of violence that was given birth to by this coflict: the violence of oppressed black South Africans against other oppressed black South Africans, like that seen in the death of Mr. M.
ANC's history
Military Service in the SADF
Violence against fellow sufferers